Tehachapi Unified School District (District) agreed to resolve a
Title IX complaint alleging sexual and gender-based harassment of a gender
non-conforming male student (Student), who attended Jacobsen Middle School.
The Student committed suicide in September 2010, and was in the eighth grade
at the time of his death. OCR investigated the complaint, and the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division collaborated with OCR on the resolution with the District.
The investigation found that the Student was targeted for harassment over two
school years because of his nonconformity with gender stereotypes. OCR and
the Justice Department determined that the harassment, which included ongoing
and escalating verbal, physical, and sexual harassment by other students at
school, was sufficiently severe, pervasive and persistent to interfere with
the Student’s educational opportunities, and that despite having notice of
the harassment, the District did not adequately investigate or otherwise respond
to it. The District signed a Resolution Agreement in which it agreed to take
all reasonable steps to ensure that all students enrolled in the District are
not subject to sex-based harassment, and to respond promptly and appropriately
to all reports of harassment. Specifically, the District will (1) revise its
policies and regulations related to sex-based harassment and retain a consultant
to provide mandatory trainings on such harassment for all students, administrators,
teachers, counselors and other staff who interact with students; (2) assess
the presence of sex-based harassment through annual school climate surveys,
(3) form an advisory committee of administrators, students and parents to advise
the district on school climate issues related to sex-based harassment, (4)
take appropriate corrective action with respect to any employee who failed
to respond appropriately to notice harassment of the Student, (5) develop a
District-wide monitoring program to assess the effectiveness of the district’s
anti-harassment efforts, and (6) provide semi-annual compliance reports to
OCR and the Justice Department for the next five years. Read
the Press Release | Read the Resolution LetterPDF (205K)
| Read
the Resolution AgreementPDF (116K)